It is January of 1995 and I am staring down the barrel of high school graduation.

2.5 GPA (maybe). No real prospects of how or what I am going to do. Body injured from a game that I loved and still do today. Any thoughts that I had of moving forward in THAT career gone.

Unclear. Lack of real interest in a lot of things other than people and THEIR story.

I am 17 years old. I have been working for Sears automotive for 4 years as well as at Merrill Lynch in Woodland Hills and also tried my hand at cooking in two restaurants. Stellas and Southwest Canna. Doing everything from grease monkey, bus boy, waiter, re buster, mechanic and Chef.

I remember a discussion I had with a man named Bob Kerrigan, who in 1991 said, “ kid when you get ready to graduate high school, call me and Ill show you how to pay for college”.

So I did just that and my journey into financial services began.

No Ivy League education or college degree. Just a desire to hear peoples stories and to help them with what mattered most. Along the way, building a business for myself (and later my family) in financial security and financial services.

A little background…. I worked at Merrill Lynch in a “boiler room”. We were connectors then. About a hundred hungry kids making dials for a senior broker and trying to “move” stock and make an intro. The energy was electric! I loved the speed and the pace.

But yet, when they came and offered me the position of junior broker and to enter the broker training program at the age of 18, with a salary, I declined and went into the all commission insurance business. Why? I WANTED AN OPPORTUNITY FOR IMPACT and to be in a business that was not ALL about “showing me the money.”

In life and in business the things I have learned over the last 23 years is that you not only get what you give BUT if you work hard, you will always have the things that you want, personally, professionally and financially.

What do you want?

I want all of these things for each one of you.

Lets make it a great year and a great finish to the quarter.

With our common goals in mind…..